Girl Gone International - ¿Lo peor de Internet?

Sometimes when you trawl the darker corners of the interwebs for content to, uh, repost, you unwittingly uncover some of the internet’s foulest atrocities. One such atrocity is a travel blog named Girl Gone International. Although it would appear GGI has been inactive since early 2015 (we can only assume the editor shot herself in a bunker), its legacy still scars the face of the World Wide Web with pustules of wisdom that sound like they were written by a 15-year-old, illiterate version of Carrie Bradshaw (so basically just Carrie Bradshaw 50 years ago), designed to insult the intelligence of women and local populations everywhere – Italians aren’t circumcised but don’t be scared; And I found the poverty and squalor in Chennai very upsetting, much worse than the poverty shown in movies. The only thing that could make Girl Gone International’s dumbed-down brand of girl power any more offensive would be if they created a series of stupid graphics overlaying heavily edited images of women with vapid quotes about travel… Oh wait, they did.

Oh I know where it’s from. Your new accent is from a misguided attempt to differentiate yourself from the friends and family you left behind because you think that being unemployable and traipsing around the world going to nice beaches and being a cultural imperialist makes you better than them. Don’t believe your own hype – you aren’t appropriating accents because of some heightened sense of empathy, nor because you’re some kind of audial auteur who just happens to pick up accents after being abroad for three weeks. You’re a phony and you’re bunging it on. Motörhead’s Lemmy didn’t lose his English midlands accent and he lived in Los Angeles for 26 years before his death. He’s the least phony person to ever suck in this planet’s crumby gasses. Your pathetic attempt at an international patois is giving me ear cancer.

All those who wander are not lost, they’ve just been shunned for their fake British accents.

Choosing experience over things is great if it works for you; choosing gloating about your choice over actually enjoying it makes you a trumpet licking bucket dumper. That’s the thing with inspirational quotes – all that they inspire in me is an immense detest for whoever felt the need to condescendingly foster upon the world their faux-positive bullshit in an attempt to appear more enlightened than their fellows. If this shit really sings to your very being, live it! Don’t waste your bandwith pissing people off by publishing this tripe.

Because travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer, right? Apart from real estate and high-performing shares. Let’s not pretend that you have transcended the desire to amass material wealth, because genuinely poor people can’t afford international travel outside of walking to refugee camps, and genuinely possession-less people don’t need extra checked baggage. And that GoPro was expensive.

It’s 2018, so if you still use travel agents then you need a fucken good therapist.

No please, do go see that therapist. No one likes sharing a dorm with a batshit crazy person who had to leave their hometown because they shoved a stick of deodorant up their ex-boyfriend’s arsehole, something they only reveal once they’re seven Estrellas deep.

Instead of buying from local businesses in the places you visit, you support an international company that exploits international sweatshop workers? That is very international of you. Also, if you’re in New York and you can’t find anywhere more interesting to shop than H&M, cunt’s fucked.

And I bet you pronounce Ibiza Ee-bee-tha too. But do you call Paris Pah-ree? Do you happily regal your Instagram “fans” with your tales about Deutchland? Refer to point one, you’re just doing this to impress your friends back home, aren’t you? Well news flash, Susan, they’re more interested in Thommo fucking Jennifer last weekend, and who’s got the cheapest pingas. Which things do you only know the foreign name for? Baguettes? It’s bread. Siesta? It’s a nap.

Kopi. Cerveza. Agua. Pho. Vino. Coffee shop. No one will judge you for knowing the words for nothing but basic coffees and alcoholic beverages and accessible local foods, until you brag about it.

Oh my god you suck. Your ability to mimic those foreigns you walk amongst is not greater than their ability to discern and make sense of slight variations in vowel sounds. You’re being condescending, and when you bring that faux accent home you’re being a phony. When you think that your crumby imitations are helping the natives comprehend you, you’re falling victim to what the great George W Bush once termed as, “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” George W Bush just burnt you, go and gone suck on that, you lowly bastard.

Bet your personality does, too. You can’t build a viable identity out of Instagram pics, and no amount of token “I’ve been overseas” bracelets/anklets/hair wraps is going to disguise the fact that underneath all the passport stamps and vacation countdown statuses you’re about as interesting as a pet rock whose googly-eyes have fallen off.

OMG that made us so mad. We promise that we’re not always so cranky… Also, cheer us up by doing something really, truly enlightening with your life and booking a Stoke Retreat, or a stay at the Ibiza Beach Camp, San Sebastian Surf Camp, or anywhere, really. Doing anything is better than being this level of phoney.